From WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003) [wn]:
Union
adj 1: being of or having to do with the northern United States and
those loyal to the Union during the Civil War; "Union
soldiers"; "Federal forces"; "a Federal infantryman"
[syn: Union, Federal]
2: of trade unions; "the union movement"; "union negotiations";
"a union-shop clause in the contract" [ant: nonunion]
n 1: an organization of employees formed to bargain with the
employer; "you have to join the union in order to get a
job" [syn: labor union, trade union, trades union,
brotherhood]
2: the United States (especially the northern states during the
American Civil War); "he has visited every state in the
Union"; "Lee hoped to detach Maryland from the Union";
"the North's superior resources turned the scale" [syn:
Union, North]
3: the act of pairing a male and female for reproductive
purposes; "the casual couplings of adolescents"; "the
mating of some species occurs only in the spring" [syn:
coupling, mating, pairing, conjugation, {sexual
union}]
4: the state of being joined or united or linked; "there is
strength in union" [syn: unification] [ant:
separation]
5: the state of being a married couple voluntarily joined for
life (or until divorce); "a long and happy marriage"; "God
bless this union" [syn: marriage, matrimony, {spousal
relationship}, wedlock]
6: healing process involving the growing together of the edges
of a wound or the growing together of broken bones [syn:
conglutination]
7: a political unit formed from previously independent people
or organizations; "the Soviet Union"
8: a set containing all and only the members of two or more
given sets; "let C be the union of the sets A and B" [syn:
sum, join]
9: the occurrence of a uniting of separate parts; "lightning
produced an unusual union of the metals"
10: a device on a national flag emblematic of the union of two
or more sovereignties (typically in the upper inner
corner)
11: the act of making or becoming a single unit; "the union of
opposing factions"; "he looked forward to the unification
of his family for the holidays" [syn: unification,
uniting, conjugation, jointure] [ant: disunion]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:
Union \Un"ion\ (?; 277), n. [F., from L. unio oneness, union, a
single large pearl, a kind of onion, fr. unus one. See One,
and cf. Onion, Unit.]
1. The act of uniting or joining two or more things into one,
or the state of being united or joined; junction;
coalition; combination.
[1913 Webster]
Note: Union differs from connection, as it implies that the
bodies are in contact, without an inter?ening body;
whereas things may be connected by the in???vention of
a third body, as by a cord or chain.
[1913 Webster]
2. Agreement and conjunction of mind, spirit, will,
affections, or the like; harmony; concord.
[1913 Webster]
3. That which is united, or made one; something formed by a
combination or coalition of parts or members; a
confederation; a consolidated body; a league; as, the
weavers have formed a union; trades unions have become
very numerous; the United States of America are often
called the Union. --A. Hamilton.
[1913 Webster]
4. A textile fabric composed of two or more materials, as
cotton, silk, wool, etc., woven together.
[1913 Webster]
5. A large, fine pearl. [Obs.]
[1913 Webster]
If they [pearls] be white, great, round, smooth, and
weighty . . . our dainties and delicates here at
Rome . . . call them unions, as a man would say
"singular," and by themselves alone. --Holland.
[1913 Webster]
In the cup an union shall he throw,
Richer than that which four successive kings
In Denmark's crown have worn. --Shak.
[1913 Webster]
6. A device emblematic of union, used on a national flag or
ensign, sometimes, as in the military standard of Great
Britain, covering the whole field; sometimes, as in the
flag of the United States, and the English naval and
marine flag, occupying the upper inner corner, the rest of
the flag being called the fly. Also, a flag having such a
device; especially, the flag of Great Britain.
[1913 Webster]
Note: The union of the United States ensign is a cluster of
white stars, denoting the union of the States, and,
properly, equal in number to that of the States,
displayed on a blue field; the fly being composed of
alternate stripes of red and white. The union of the
British ensign is the three crosses of St. George, St.
Andrew, and St. Patrick in combination, denoting the
union of England, Scotland and Ireland, displayed on a
blue field in the national banner used on shore, on a
red, white, or blue field in naval ensigns, and with a
white border or fly in the merchant service.
[1913 Webster]
[1913 Webster]
7. (Mach.) A joint or other connection uniting parts of
machinery, or the like, as the elastic pipe of a tender
connecting it with the feed pipe of a locomotive engine;
especially, a pipe fitting for connecting pipes, or pipes
and fittings, in such a way as to facilitate
disconnection.
[1913 Webster]
8. (Brewing) A cask suspended on trunnions, in which
fermentation is carried on.
[1913 Webster]
Hypostatic union (Theol.) See under Hypostatic.
Latin union. See under Latin.
Legislative Union (Eng. Hist.), the union of Great Britain
and Ireland, which took place Jan. 1, 1801.
Union, or Act of Union (Eng. Hist.), the act by which
Scotland was united to England, or by which the two
kingdoms were incorporated into one, in 1707.
Union by the first intention, or {Union by the second
intention}. (Surg.) See To heal by the first intention, or
To heal by the second intention, under Intention.
Union down (Naut.), a signal of distress at sea made by
reversing the flag, or turning its union downward.
Union jack. (Naut.) See Jack, n., 10.
Union joint. (Mech.)
(a) A joint formed by means of a union.
(b) A piece of pipe made in the form of the letter T.
[1913 Webster]
Syn: Unity; junction; connection; concord; alliance;
coalition; combination; confederacy.
Usage: Union, Unity. Union is the act of bringing two or
more things together so as to make but one, or the
state of being united into one. Unity is a state of
simple oneness, either of essence, as the unity of
God, or of action, feeling, etc., as unity of design,
of affection, etc. Thus, we may speak of effecting a
union of interests which shall result in a unity of
labor and interest in securing a given object.
[1913 Webster]
One kingdom, joy, and union without end.
--Milton.
[1913 Webster]
[Man] is to . . . beget
Like of his like, his image multiplied.
In unity defective; which requires
Collateral love, and dearest amity. --Milton.
[1913 Webster]
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (19 Sep 2003) [foldoc]:
union
1. <set theory> An operation on two sets which returns the
set of all elements that are a member of either or both of the
argument sets; normally written as an infix upper-case U
symbol. The operator generalises to zero or more sets by
taking the union of the current partial result (initially the
empty set) with the next argument set, in any order.
For example, (a, b, c) U (c, d, e) = (a, b, c, d, e)
2. <programming> A type whose values may be of one of a
number of other types, thet current type depending on
conditions that are only known at run-time. A variable of
union type must be allocated sufficient storage space to hold
the largest component type. Some unions include extra
information to say which type of value the union currently has
(a "tagged union"), others rely on the program to keep track
of this independently.
A union contrasts with a structure or record which stores
values of all component types at once.
3. <database> An SQL operator that concatenates two result
sets, that must have the same number and types of columns.
The operator may be followed by the word "ALL" to indicate
that results that appear in both sets should appear twice in
the output.
(2002-02-26)